What These Updates Mean to Integrated Ad Networks

We take the battle against mobile fraud very seriously, delivering the enterprise-grade protection and advanced insights marketers need to make informed investments about their mobile growth.

We are proud to offer the most advanced fraud diagnostics for ad networks (at no cost to you), and expect our partners to make full use of these insights. In my experience, very few ad networks intentionally commit fraud, rather, most fraud occurs on the publisher level. We look at Protect360 as an incredible opportunity for our partners to clean up fraudulent inventory and avoid the inevitable loss that comes with it.

However, now that ad networks have transparent access to their fraudulent traffic, we expect you to act responsibly and take action as needed. Those that ignore this incredible data source in the interest of short-term growth goals damage the long term viability of their business in a competitive market, and could face corrective action. Please bear in mind that integrated network reporting is available for marketers who subscribe to Protect360 or Validation Rules respectively, so be sure to ask your clients if they are using these services.

We have also developed a new, free tool called IO Builder: Fraud Appendix. This tool allows marketers to easily define their acceptable CTIT and Protect360 ratings thresholds, and easily add these criteria to their IOs (insertion orders). We encourage all marketers and networks to clearly define their fraud standards as part of the IO process, avoiding the need for lengthy reconciliation negotiations down the line.

When running traffic for a marketer with a subscription to Protect360, integrated partners gain access to both standard fraud indicators such as Click Time to Install (CTIT), as well as DeviceID Reset Fraud data. This effectively extends Protect360’s advanced solutions for fraud from device farms to our integrated partners.

Protect360 is available to integrated partners in two formats:

Rejected Install Postbacks and Raw Data Reports All integrated partners can now receive rejected install postbacks for campaigns run with marketers who subscribe to Protect360. These postbacks include the reason for the rejection, to help you focus on your most valuable publishers, extending the life of your campaigns. For those who are not set up to receive rejected install postbacks, this data will also be available as a Raw Data Report inside the partner dashboard.

Transparent Reporting: When enabled by marketers subscribing to Protect360, integrated partners enjoy full access to Protect360’s analysis of their traffic. This helps marketers and their network partners understand their fraudulent traffic, and address issues as they arise.

Validation Rules for Integrated PartnersValidation Rules is a new capability that allows marketers to define which installs should or should not be attributed based on a number of criteria, including geo, OS version, device data and soon, fraud KPIs.

All Validation Rules are transparent to relevant integrated partners. Validation Rules configurations, as well as a log of all rejected installs are both available in your partner dashboard. Furthermore, integrated partners have the option to receive rejected install postbacks, as well as information for why each attribution event was rejected.

We recommend that both marketers and their network partners clearly communicate any changes to Validation Rules and pay close attention to any rejected install reports to avoid any confusion.

Uncompromising CommitmentWe are committed to giving marketers and the ecosystem they rely on, the insight and clarity needed to grow. With no paid products or revenue streams from any ad networks, affiliate networks or DSPs, AppsFlyer remains the unbiased and uncompromising industry standard for mobile measurement.

Members of our Partner Development team are already in advanced conversations with a number of leading ad networks, helping them capitalize on their new data streams to improve their inventory and performance. Our global Partner Development team are now available to all integrated partners to help train your teams on the mobile fraud landscape, as well as to help you better understand and make use of the new Protect360 and Validation Rules partner data.

We look forward to speaking with you.

About Elad Mashiach

Elad is VP Partners Development at AppsFlyer. Elad is a mobile advertising expert. Before joining AppsFlyer, he worked for companies like Worldmate and Taptica, which gave him a strong understanding of advertisers, publishers, and ad networks’ needs. Elad studied Social Sciences at Bar Ilan University.